Isolation in the Modern Age: Green Bubbles

March 22, 2019 in Parenting, Photography, Social Media

This might seem like a weird thing to blog about, but it was so traumatic for me that it needs to be done. This entire blog will be to tell you about my horrible experience switching to a Galaxy S9+ recently. The funny thing is, it’s a great phone, and it has a great camera (which is big reason why I switched) but man, I didn’t know how terrible it would be to go back to Android after being with Apple. Let me tell you why.

Warning: This next paragraph might be offensive to Mac users.

Let me start with a little backstory and some interesting facts you might not know. For starters, I work on PC, almost exclusively, in fact I am writing this on a PC (I know, I know, just take a deep breath and keep reading). My laptop is a PC. I have a MacBook Pro, but I don’t use it and it’s old. I actually bought a Mac out of peer pressure, because that’s what “creatives” use, but I realized quickly that it didn’t matter, and I could build a PC for way cheaper than a Mac. That being said I might have just lost a ton of readers, but oh well, that’s the long and short of it. I think Mac is great, but I’ve never had a problem with my PC, and with all the stuff I have in this PC it would cost me over $4k with Mac, I haven’t even hit $2k with all the upgrades.

OK, let’s get to the meat of this blog. A few years ago my wife and I decided to try iPhones, everyone said they were awesome, and so we decided to give it the ol’ college try. They were great, I have nothing against iPhone…they had been really reliable as far as things go. Recently though, I became a little tired of the lack of compatibility and flexability that iPhones have. In a brash moment of stupidity, I researched phones and bought a Samsung Galaxy S9+. Really cool, and as I said earlier the camera system was getting great reviews, which is what I use it for most. It seemed like a win win, but there was no winning involved, it was very much lose lose.

Frankly, getting the phone going was rough. I bought an unlocked phone, and the SIM card from my iPhone didn’t work (shocker). I ordered another SIM card, which actually took a while to get. Once I got the new SIM card I switched everything over and had the horrific realization that if someone had an iPhone and I texted them I would not get the return text. It was going to my iPhone, on iMessage. The solution? After calling the phone company and researching online, I was told to text everyone who had an iPhone and switch my phone to text message only. That’s where it started, sending out a shameful little green bubble to hundreds of people publicly proclaiming that I don’t have an iPhone anymore.

Great, text message problem solved. I was good to go! Wrong. After that came some really bad realizations. First of all, I send images to people all the time, and I have people send me images and videos regularly, especially BTS from my assistants. I also send my wife a lot of photos and get a lot of photos/videos from her. I couldn’t do any of that any more, I didn’t get most of the photos, I couldn’t send photos or videos to iPhones because they were to big, and videos from other people came through as tiny pixelated movies that you could barely see, if they came through at all. On a positive note, there is something called Samsung Share (which is like iMessage for Samsung) so you can share stuff with all your Samsung pals! Oh wait, I only know three people who have Android phones and only two of them are Samsung.

That was the beginning of the end for me, I completely took for granted how many people have iPhones and what that means. There is an actual end though. It happened when we realized my wife couldn’t have the kids send me voice messages, and as I was walking her through downloading something in place of FaceTime while I was trying to say good night to the kids on set. I was getting ready for two big trips and this was definitely the straw that broke the camels back.

This might sound dramatic, and frankly this whole blog post is just a giant 1st world problem rant about how a big baby had to buy another phone, but it was genuinely isolating. It was as if I couldn’t communicate with people, especially my family and other people in my industry. It was terrible, and never once in all of my research did I see it mentioned that switching to Android would make it so you really can’t communicate the same way.

You could think of this blog as a review for people thinking about switching from iPhone to Android, I mean, A LOT of people said they were thinking about it when I switched. I can tell you now with great certainty that you shouldn’t switch, not if you’ve been on iPhone for any length of time. I was literally discovering things almost every day that either wouldn’t work or need a new app to work so I could do seemingly normal things.

How does this story end? With me shamefully walking into the Apple store and buying another iPhone. Let me tell you, if you think new cars don’t hold their value (which they don’t) new phones are even worse. I sold my Samsung for $340, after using it for 2 months, I lost almost $400. On top of that, I had to spend almost $900 on the new iPhone…I’m not great at math, but it wasn’t good. My advice, just be happy with what you have: I have an iPhone and I’m happy with that.

Defy Burnout - Part 1

October 24, 2018 in Behind the Scenes, Inspiration, Photography, Tutorial, Parenting

INTRO

Hopefully you’ve noticed by now there are a couple new taglines floating around my brand: “Defy Mediocracy” and “Visuals for the Victorious”. My reasoning behind Defy Mediocracy was simple, I’m tired of people settling for good enough. We all know the saying “everyone gets a trophy”, well I don’t agree with that. Some people get trophies, the people who actually win. Before you log off this blog thinking “this guys a dick, I like getting free trophies” let me explain. Our market, photo/video, is saturated with crap. Scroll through Instagram, there is a lot of really bad imagery out there. If we’re being honest with ourselves, those people will not get hired. No trophies. If you don’t care about your clients you will not get hired. No trophies. If you don’t do what you say you’re going to do, and don’t deliver a high quality product in the timeline you were given, you won’t get hired again, or you’ll get fired. You get to polish one trophy forever, have fun with that. No matter what our culture tells us, we don’t all get trophies, and if someone gives you a trophy for nothing, you should give it back…you don’t want trophies like that.

Wow, that was a long intro, well it’s my set up for a series of blogs I am calling DEFY. I want to take a look at certain things that hold us back and talk about how I DEFY them. I don’t want you to settle for good enough, or getting meaningless rewards. I want you to WIN. Despite what people say, there are winners and there are losers, the first time you bid a big job and another photographer gets it instead of you, I won’t need to explain this. It sucks.

Let’s get started!

DEFY BURNOUT!

When I first started working in the photo industry I remember my boss at Sugar Digital telling me this was a “high burnout” industry, and they did everything they could to keep people happy and refreshed. In my naive inexperience I thought “I’ll never burn out, this is my dream!”, like I said, naive. It wasn’t more than a year later that I was hurting to do something else, anything else! It wasn’t my boss, or the job, it was that I felt uninspired and lost. I ended up going back to my career in scuba diving (that’s another conversation) and I kept doing my own photo/retouching work on the side. I did this for a while, often working 70-100 hrs a week to meet all my deadlines and manage a store. It’ll come as no surprise I found myself burned out again, and finally was able to quit my scuba job to become a full time free lancer.

There you have it, I quit my job, became a full time freelance photographer and I never struggled with burn out or inspiration ever again! JK, it was worse. Shortly after I quit we found out we had another kiddo on the way (we already had a 1 yo at home). I can’t totally explain the pressure I felt, scratch that, the pressure I feel. I’m the sole provider for our family, if I don’t make money we don’t have dinner, we lose our house and other horrible things that I don’t like to think about!

This is what you call a petri dish, a place where you grow bacteria…not the good kind. It’s the environment where burn out grows. As a result of the self imposed pressure I was working 70-100 hrs a week consistently, often working 7 days a week. This leads to my first point for fighting burn out: DON’T WORK 7 DAYS A WEEK. It’s soul sucking, it’s scientifically proven and it’s just not good for you. Lez be honest, I still have to do this sometimes, but after the crazy schedule I build in time off to compensate. It’s a different kind of tired, it’s exhaustion, and you will not be the creative person you always dream of being when you feel like this!

This leads me to my next thought, and that’s to HAVE SOME SORT OF SCHEDULE. I fought this for a long time, I thought “there’s no off hours when you’re a freelancer!”. Being honest again, that’s kind of true, but you also have control over how available you are. I tend to work from around 7 am - 6 pm Mon-Fri, and as needed on Saturdays. I try to avoid working on Sundays like the plague, that’s our day, that’s my time. I don’t even do social media on Sundays, and I try really hard not to use my phone as little as possible. I would also highly recommend letting your family know those hours, especially if you work from home. Let them know that “if daddy can focus on his work he will be able to be done faster and hang out!”. I use this kind of language all the time with my kids, that way they understand that I can be more efficient with my time if I’m not bouncing my attention from one thing to the next.

Bouncing…that’s a good segue. I grew up with this idea that “you need to learn how to MULTI-TASK”, that’s wrong. I still struggle to overcome this idea. It’s not multi tasking, it’s called inefficient. I have learned a lot about this over the years, and in a nut shell you’re brain is struggling to jump from one thing to the next, therefore making everything mediocre. It also trains your brain to under perform, so don’t do that. How does this relate to burn out? Two reasons. First, if you multi task you’ll get half as much done in twice the time. It’ll feel like you’re SUPER BUSY, and you are, but not in a good way. You’ll feel like you’re always behind, and you never finish what you start, these are very defeating emotions. Secondly, it makes for a messy brain. When you’re mind is always jumping around and can’t focus on something it’s very hard to be creative. When you can’t feel creative it’s easy to feel discouraged, which leads to faster burn out…because you’re busy all the time doing things you don’t want to do…and you’re doing them poorly!

This is a long topic for me, and I think I will make this a two part blog in the name of digestibility. I want you to know that this is a long because I have a lot of experience with burn out! Mine is greatly self inflicted, and I still struggle with it all the time. I just hope that in some small way my struggles can help you find the light in your own. Next week I will finish this blog with a few more tips and thoughts!

Until then I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR HOW YOU FIGHT BURN OUT IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!

DEFY MEDIOCRACY

2017...the adventure continues.

January 06, 2017 in Commercial Photography, Parenting, Photography, Social Media, Phothoshop, Inspiration

2016 was an incredible year, we were extremely blessed to shoot with some amazing companies and individuals. Our last big shoot of the year was with Elizabeth Marks (pictured above), and to say the least she is one of the most inspirational people/athletes you can imagine. With that incredible momentum, and new year's in the recent past, I thought it would be good to get the year started off with a blog about what's coming in 2017!

First of all, you might wonder why I haven't really posted on any of my social media channels (or at least I like to tell myself you've been wondering) and that's actually pretty easy to answer, I've been with my family. One of the main things I want this blog to be about is the importance of priority and scheduling. As I have blogged about before, I am a husband and dad before anything else, that's what my main priority is. When we ended 2016 I was working anywhere from 70-100 hrs a week just to stay on top of the deadlines, and we needed to take a minute to regroup as a family and get some quality time. Next week I will be back in full swing, but I wanted to take a second to challenge you as you go into this next year with a couple of thoughts:

1. Get yourself into a good headspace - This can mean different things to different people, whether it be through prayer, meditation or even just sitting quietly, take a minute every day to visualize your day and your career. I still struggle with this, but every morning I wake up, make coffee and take the first few sips just for me. You can look to people like Chase Jarvis, Marie Forleo and I am sure a million other succesful people for more ideas on this.

2. Take Care of your body - I definitely struggle here, but I have been working really hard at making sure I exercise and eat as healthy as possible. I hate the gym, but I go, and try to take a minute to breathe. We all work long hours, and this industry takes a toll on you, but you will be able to handle it better if you are healthy. Plus, for all my fellow dads out there, it will help you be focused and have more fun with your kids if you can still pick them up at the end of a long day :)

3. Take time for creativity - This can also mean a lot of things, it could be sketching in a coffee shop, walking through the city, watching a visually inspiring movie, etc. Make no mistake, creativity is nurtured, it needs love and time just like any other skill.

4. Schedule it! - I think one of my favorite quotes from Marie Forleo is "if it's not scheduled, it's not real!" I totally agree with this, and as crazy as it may feel at first you need to make sure you are scheduling yourself. I am not just talking about scheduling those meeting you have, I am talking about scheduling personal deadlines, projects, e-mails, marketing, etc etc etc. If it's important to you it should be in your schedule.

Alright, so with those nuggets in hand, what can you be expecting to see from us in 2017?! I am excited for what's coming, and while I can't talk about all of it, there are some really exciting projects we are working on. In the next couple months we will be finishing our huge video series on composite photography, shooting in studio and on location to show you guys how it goes together. I am also working on more Photoshop tutorials to give you guys all the puzzle pieces you need! A little birdy has been chirping unconfirmed rumors of a podcast...but you'll have to wait to hear more about that one :) Of course we have a bunch of shoots coming up, and we'll be posting all the bts and images through our different social media channels.

I am also planning on broadcasting live on Instagram this year, so keep your eyes peeled for that!

In closing I wanted to open the floor to all of you! I would love to hear what topics you'd like to learn about in 2017, whether it's lighting, business, composite, Photoshop, or anything else, please feel free to leave a comment below and I will do my best to respond or possibly do a tutorial!

Thank you all for an awesome 2016, and now, go BE AWESOME!

I am a husband, a dad, and a photographer.

August 21, 2015 in Photography, Tutorial, Parenting

I have often thought about starting a blog for dad's, as it feels like we don't talk about the fact that we are dad's and husbands before anything else. We get up and we go to work, of course, but we have wonderful wives behind us, and awesome little munchkins to squeeze when we get home. As a photographer I work weird hours, and long hours...and most of the photographers I know work very similar hours, it's kind of how things work. How do you balance that? How do you make sure that you don't miss the things that are way more important than pictures? Here's a couple ideas. This applies mostly to photography, but I think most dad's could apply at least one or two of these.

You make your schedule, your schedule doesn't make you. When I started into full time photography my wife and I sat down and talked about what my schedule would look like. We knew it would be grueling, and wanted to make sure we put boundaries in place before it got too crazy. Something I learned when I was a Real Estate agent was the idea of blocking out time as family appt, you block it just like you would for a client, and you protect it just like you would for a client. After, all they are your most important client! I also try my hardest to set hours during the week, I know that I want to work from say 7-5 and then take the evening to be with my family. This can be really critical when work is crazy, it's so easy to work longer and longer but if you have a time in mind it is helpful.
PLAN! If you don't know what you're doing during the day you will waste huge amounts of time. I will make check lists of things that need to be accomplished, and I will look at it constantly throughout the day to make sure I am staying on course (Yes, writing this blog was on my list today!). I use Evernote as a way to stay on course and keep track of ideas that I come up with, I sync it to all of my devices so I can always access what I need to be doing and what ideas I have. I am not sponsored by Evernote, but I wouldn't be opposed to the idea (wink, wink).
Your family should not suffer for your work. I work a lot, sometimes 70 hours in a week, and at this stage in life that is just going to happen. How do I do that and spend time with my family? I work when they are sleeping. I get up before they wake up and I work after they go to bed. This allows me keep long hours and not miss out on seeing them. This might sound crazy, and it is, but it's possible. If you don't drink coffee, you should, that's one of the key ingredients ;) I read an article a while back that said tired minds tend to be more creative...which means I must be super creative!
Take a day off. I'm not going to lie, this is the one I struggle with. If it wasn't for my wife I probably would work every day without stopping, but let me be the first to say it is not good or healthy to do that. Many studies have shown how good taking one day off to recover is, and I know from personal experience that this is true. Now for the hardest part, taking the day really off. Can you imagine a day where you don't think about work? You don't do work, you don't work on your social media, you don't think about an edit, and the list goes on and on. This is what I mean by a day off: you don't do anything related to work and you allow your mind and body to refresh outside of work. Like I said, I struggle with it, and most creatives do. As a quick aside, if you have an idea on your day off just write it down really quick and then leave it, that way you don't lose it and you can continue you day off. In our family we take Sunday's, but pick a day that works for you and do it...Take heart! It can be done!
Integrate your family into your work. My kiddos are still pretty little, but they can still come and see me at the studio and they most certainly can have their pictures taken! One of the things that is awesome about being a photographer is that I can have moments during the day where my fam can come and say hello. I can also plan a photo shoot for my kiddos that I will use as a personal project. Most of my clients don't mind meeting my kids, and models are always excited to meet the little cuties :)

I know this is a little bit different from the normal blog, but it's something that has been really relevant for me and I don't feel like a ton of people talk about it. Plus it gives me the opportunity to share a personal project I did with my daughter recently! Go be awesome parents and awesome creatives!